09/21/17  Portland, Ore.

PRADO: A Palliative Care Model for Every Radiation Oncology Practice

During the past few years, large academic radiation oncology programs have uncovered a significant gap in providing palliative care to hospitalized cancer patients. The renowned SPRO (Supportive and Palliative Radiation Oncology) service at Brigham and Women's Hospital (1) has charted the waters since 2011. Similar programs have begun, including, but not limited to, inPROV (Inpatient Palliative Radiation Oncology Service at Vanderbilt) (2) and SOPR (Supportive Oncology and Palliative Radiotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania), which have provided a tremendous benefit to patients, improvements in physician satisfaction, and increases in patient volumes. These academic programs have also incorporated closer follow-up protocols for a subset of patients with metastatic disease, who have a greater risk of requiring additional radiation treatment (RT), such as patients who have received a single fraction of palliative RT (8 Gy X 1) or patients with central nervous system involvement or oligometastatic disease. [PDF]